Written Answers Wednesday 6 September 2006

Scottish Executive

Central Heating Programme

Eleanor Scott (Highlands and Islands) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it is taking to audit the use of the free central heating programme for pensioners.

Johann Lamont: I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Her response is as follows:

  Independent quality assurance monitoring and inspection is carried out to a range of key performance indicators and reports provided to Communities Scotland on a monthly basis.

  Each year an annual report is produced that provides statistical information and benefits of the central heating programme for pensioners.

  Copies of the report are placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 40189). The latest report, covering the period 2004 -05, is available on Communities Scotland website at: www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/webpages/otcs015222.pdf.

Child Care

Robin Harper (Lothians) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is considering introducing a scheme, similar to that operating in England under the auspices of the Office for Standards in Education and Nestor Primecare Services, to license child care for the purposes of tax relief and the granting of child care vouchers.

Robert Brown: The Scottish Executive has no plans to introduce a scheme similar to that operating in England to license child care for the purposes of tax relief and the granting of child care vouchers. This is because, in Scotland, all formal child care for children aged up to 16 years is already regulated by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care and is therefore eligible for these benefits. This includes child care provided in a child’s own home supplied by a Childcare Agency, but does not include nannies or baby sitters employed by parents on a private basis.

  In England, Ofsted only regulate child care for children aged up to seven years and do not regulate child care provided in the child’s own home. The tax benefits introduced by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to help working parents with child care costs only apply to registered or approved child care. It was for this reason that, in England, it was necessary to introduce the Childcare Approval Scheme.

Energy Efficiency

Shiona Baird (North East Scotland) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to allow public sector bodies to have access to information on the energy performance of buildings gained through the provision of energy performance certificates and how this will be achieved.

Johann Lamont: A public consultation on implementation of Articles 7, 8 and 9 of the EU Directive 2002/91/EC on the energy performance of buildings closed on 11 August 2006 having run for 12 weeks. Section 9 of the consultation entitled Retaining and making use of information from energy performance certificates presented four options regarding provision of a register of energy performance certificates with national coverage. The options given were:

  1. no register;

  2. the building standards register;

  3. a register held by a non-public body, and

  4. a hybrid of options 2 and 3.

  Options 2, 3 and 4 all have registers that are accessible to both Scottish ministers and local authorities. The responses to the consultation are still in the process of being analysed and no decision has been taken.

Free School Meals

Eleanor Scott (Highlands and Islands) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive how it will address the position whereby the children of parents in receipt of child tax credit with an annual income less than £13,910 are entitled to free school meals but the children of parents with an income below that sum who are in receipt of working tax credit are not.

Peter Peacock: The current threshold relating to free school meal eligibility where an applicant is in receipt of Child Tax Credit, but not Working Tax Credit, is £14,155.

  Scottish ministers invited comment on the current eligibility criteria for free school meals as part of the consultation on the proposed Schools (Nutrition and Health Promotion) (Scotland) Bill and are also in discussion with various organisations regarding the criteria. These responses, along with a range of existing information and evidence, will be used to help inform any future policy decisions on this matter.

Health

Mr Stewart Maxwell (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many incident reports there have been in each NHS board in each of the last five years.

Mr Andy Kerr: This information is not held centrally. Each NHS board maintains its own incident reporting and monitoring system and these systems do not allow comparisons directly due to data definition differences.

Health

Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many paediatricians are employed in each NHS board area of the Highlands and Islands.

Lewis Macdonald: Information on staff employed in NHSScotland is published on the Scottish Health Statistics website under Workforce Statistics, at www.isdscotland.org/workforce .

  Section B gives details of medical staff in post in NHSScotland. In particular, table B7 shows the head count number of medical staff employed in paediatrics by NHS board, in each year from 2003. Latest available figures are at 30 September 2005.

Housing

Alex Neil (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress the ministerial progress group on the second stage transfer of Glasgow’s housing stock has made and whether it will be reaching conclusions and making recommendations on how any funding shortfall for the second stage transfer will be resolved.

Johann Lamont: The Ministerial Progress Group on second stage transfers (SST) brings together the key partners to consider the financial and other issues which need to be addressed to deliver SST successfully, a process to which Scottish ministers are firmly committed. While the progress group is not a decision-making body, it has access to the work being carried out by a joint team of officials (involving Communities Scotland, Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), Glasgow City Council and potential purchasers) looking at possible scenarios for SST within the existing financial framework. It will be for GHA, the local housing organisations and the Scottish Executive to agree, in consultation with other stakeholders such as Glasgow City Council and funders, what form SST should take to secure best use of public money and best outcomes for local communities.

Housing

Mr Stewart Maxwell (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how much has been spent on the renovation of local authority and housing association properties in the last 10 years, broken down by local authority area.

Malcolm Chisholm: The available information is given in the following table which shows total capital expenditure on local authority housing in each year since local government reorganisation in 1996-97. Information on housing association expenditure, broken down by local authority area, is not held centrally.

  Housing Revenue Account Capital Expenditure £000

  

Local Authority 
 1996-97
 1997-98
 1998-99
 1999-2000
 2000-01
 2001-02
 2002-03
 2003-04
 2004-05
 2005-06 Est.


 HRA
 HRA
 HRA
 HRA
 HRA
 HRA
 HRA
 HRA
 Prudential
 Prudential


 Aberdeen City Council
 13,873
 15,384
 23,268
 24,263
 22,991
 20,547
 19,026
 20,340
 30,765
 33,557


 Aberdeenshire Council
 9,996
 9,896
 9,171
 11,511
 11,756
 12,112
 7,487
 9,957
 6,401
 8,367


 Angus Council
 6,546
 8,293
 6,683
 6,322
 7,475
 7,222
 6,851
 6,969
 9,828
 9,086


 Argyll and Bute Council
 3,001
 4,658
 3,839
 4,148
 3,196
 3,282
 3,500
 3,547
 3,629
 3,747


 Clackmannanshire Council
 3,621
 2,729
 3,010
 3,802
 3,492
 3,419
 3,247
 3,425
 6,074
 5,795


 Dumfries and Galloway
 9,456
 8,539
 10,762
 9,959
 11,359
 8,725
 6,820
 n/a
 n/a
 n/a


 Dundee City Council
 14,249
 11,949
 12,423
 12,704
 13,331
 11,822
 11,097
 10,705
 15,080
 14,924


 East Ayrshire Council
 8,908
 7,023
 11,405
 8,303
 9,443
 9,630
 9,850
 9,898
 11,793
 9,976


 East Dunbartonshire Council
 4,273
 3,213
 3,437
 4,516
 4,735
 4,157
 4,014
 5,336
 5,193
 6,755


 East Lothian Council
 7,329
 7,537
 6,918
 6,917
 6,105
 5,225
 8,720
 7,978
 12,611
 17,028


 East Renfrewshire
 2,956
 2,191
 1,544
 1,675
 2,066
 1,992
 2,212
 1,637
 2,550
 5,163


 Edinburgh Council, City of
 25,068
 22,474
 27,021
 29,471
 25,517
 24,891
 23,691
 26,056
 30,189
 35,275


 Eilean Siar, Comhairle nan
 2,728
 2,082
 2,240
 2,263
 2,387
 2,355
 2,691
 2,629
 2,156
 2,823


 Falkirk Council
 10,138
 8,779
 10,533
 12,389
 13,282
 12,381
 14,162
 12,404
 16,653
 13,098


 Fife Council
 15,638
 13,478
 25,473
 23,110
 20,598
 24,992
 23,719
 25,037
 31,432
 34,378


 Glasgow City Council
 72,140
 52,981
 55,895
 54,409
 57,761
 77,720
 75,609
 n/a
 n/a
 n/a


 Highland Council
 15,100
 10,003
 10,583
 9,991
 11,825
 14,643
 12,339
 15,440
 13,458
 14,176


 Inverclyde Council
 4,007
 6,326
 5,425
 6,419
 5,601
 5,861
 5,530
 4,879
 4,584
 5,721


 Midlothian Council
 4,840
 4,555
 5,072
 4,500
 4,700
 5,837
 5,149
 7,476
 4,484
 8,749


 Moray Council
 3,337
 4,156
 3,707
 2,865
 4,103
 3,460
 3,266
 3,672
 2,924
 3,253


 North Ayrshire Council
 27,355
 8,170
 7,316
 6,506
 7,709
 7,379
 7,556
 8,015
 8,017
 18,719


 North Lanarkshire Council
 39,603
 32,589
 24,827
 25,247
 24,675
 22,964
 24,487
 24,572
 39,302
 40,550


 Orkney Islands Council
 270
 504
 524
 668
 595
 760
 770
 686
 652
 795


 Perth and Kinross Council
 4,577
 4,316
 4,242
 3,817
 6,189
 3,393
 5,959
 4,470
 4,065
 5,860


 Renfrewshire Council
 11,691
 13,275
 13,521
 13,584
 12,971
 12,582
 13,016
 11,059
 14,383
 16,244


 Scottish Borders Council
 5,451
 3,679
 4,435
 3,621
 3,971
 3,530
 2,344
 n/a
 n/a
 n/a


 Shetland Islands Council
 3,186
 2,314
 2,467
 2,206
 2,560
 3,349
 2,000
 2,891
 1,715
 1,172


 South Ayrshire Council
 8,321
 6,353
 7,562
 7,507
 6,533
 7,720
 7,546
 9,995
 6,097
 8,602


 South Lanarkshire Council
 17,133
 16,000
 20,696
 18,055
 16,750
 18,160
 21,876
 23,511
 32,443
 49,092


 Stirling Council
 5,383
 5,292
 5,263
 4,706
 6,457
 6,311
 5,984
 6,448
 9,337
 9,635


 West Dunbartonshire
 7,293
 8,544
 8,882
 8,233
 8,132
 7,170
 6,830
 8,752
 12,049
 15,147


 West Lothian Council
 40,291
 13,049
 13,979
 11,744
 12,756
 13,762
 23,168
 34,193
 23,904
 27,763


 Scotland
 407,758
 320,330
 352,122
 345,431
 351,021
 367,353
 370,516
 311,976
 361,768
 425,450



  Notes:

  Information provided by councils in the housing income and expenditure statistical return.

  Includes capital expenditure funded from revenue accounts in addition to expenditure funded from borrowing and from capital receipts. The figures for 2004-5 and 2005-06 are extracted from local authorities prudential regime returns.

  Capital expenditure includes expenditure on new building and the acquisition of land. In the period the majority of local authority housing revenue account capital expenditure was for the renovation of local authority properties.

Housing

Mr Stewart Maxwell (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what criteria are used to decide which local authority and housing association properties are to be renovated.

Malcolm Chisholm: Local authorities and housing associations will consider a range of factors in deciding which properties are to be improved. These will include the current condition of the housing, legislative requirements including Health and Safety, Tolerable Standard or Building Regulations and also take into account the timing of any work which requires to be completed to enable all properties to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS).

Housing

Mr Stewart Maxwell (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many council houses have had similar renovations carried out more than once in the last 10 years, broken down by local authority.

Malcolm Chisholm: This information is not held centrally.

Justice

Rob Gibson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many successful prosecutions there were of persons for (a) cycling on pavements and (b) obstructing pedestrian use of pavements by illegally parking cars in each year from 2000 to 2005, broken down by sheriffdom.

Cathy Jamieson: The available information on convictions for cycling on pavements is given in the following table. Convictions for obstructing pedestrian use of pavements by illegal parking of cars cannot be identified separately from other parking offences in the statistics available centrally.

  Persons with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts for Cycling on Pavements1, 2000-01 to 2004-05

  

 Sheriffdom
 2000-01
 2001-02
 2002-03
 2003-04
 2004-05


 Glasgow 
 -
 -
 -
 1
 -


 Grampian, Highland and Islands
 -
 -
 2
 -
 -


 Lothian and Borders 
 -
 1
 2
 1
 -


 North Strathclyde 
 -
 -
 1
 -
 -


 South Strathclyde D and G
 -
 -
 -
 -
 -


 Tayside, Central and Fife 
 1
 1
 1
 -
 -


 Scotland
 1
 2
 6
 2
 -



  Note: 1. Where main offence under section 129(5) of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984.

Legal Services

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what average hourly rate is paid for the services of (a) partners, (b) qualified solicitors and (c) unqualified solicitors of private law for work commissioned or instructed by the Executive.

Colin Boyd QC: The average hourly rates charged by qualified solicitors, trainee solicitors and paralegal staff instructed to act on behalf of the Scottish ministers, the Scottish Executive and its agencies are set out below:

  

 Senior Partner
£180


 Partner
£164


 Associate Solicitor
£138


 Solicitor
£136


 Assistant/Junior Solicitor
£115


 Trainee Solicitor
£76


 Paralegal
£78

Planning

Murray Tosh (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to the speech by Malcolm Chisholm MSP to the Chartered Institute of Housing Conference on 7 March 2006, which local authorities it considers have shown an insufficient commitment to the identification of a genuine long-term effective land supply that will provide an opportunity for the development of the range of housing types in suitable locations as well as greater certainty for both developers and local communities; what guidance it proposes to issue to improve the regular auditing of effective land supply, and what steps it proposes to ensure that local authorities respond appropriately to the minister’s injunctions to create "a step change in the whole approach to the supply of land for housing".

Malcolm Chisholm: My remarks to the conference on 7 March 2006 were intended to urge local authorities collectively to show much greater commitment through their development plans to the identification of a genuine long-term effective land supply. I expect this to be achieved by a combination of local authorities making more effective use of existing planning processes (the type of issue that is being explored by the Affordable Housing Working Group) and by the Executive progressing measures to support the supply of affordable housing and land for housing more generally.

  The provisions in the current Planning Bill are designed to speed up the preparation of development plans, which in turn will be a mechanism to increase the amount of land available for housing development. We have commissioned research to consider the effectiveness of measures to allocate land for affordable housing, and in particular the potential role of a separate use class for affordable housing. We are also working hard to improve access by affordable housing providers to surplus public sector land.

  Housing land audits are used to quantify current housing land supply, and to assess which sites are "effective". SPP 3 emphasises that audits should normally be updated on a yearly basis and PAN 38 provides further advice. However, I understand that across Scotland there may be variations in approach to the audit process. We are considering commissioning a short research project to identify good practice to help establish more consistency.

  Taken together, these measures should help to deliver the "step change" in our approach to land supply about which I spoke on 7 March 2006.

Social Work

Mike Pringle (Edinburgh South) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to encourage local authorities to privatise the delivery of social work and social care services.

Robert Brown: The Scottish Executive has no plans to encourage local authorities to privatise the delivery of social care services. Under their duty of best value, all local authorities are required to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in performance (while maintaining an appropriate balance between quality and cost) and in doing so to have regard to economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equal opportunities requirements and to the achievement of sustainable development.

Teachers

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what percentages of teachers have obtained permanent posts in the year after completing probation in each of the last three years.

Peter Peacock: I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-18887 on 28 September 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search .

Teachers

Murray Tosh (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many newly-qualified teachers have been given a probationary teaching post under its teacher induction scheme in each year since the scheme was introduced; how many of these teachers have completed their probationary years successfully in each year; how many have gone on to find permanent jobs with (a) the same education authority with which they were initially placed or (b) with other authorities; how many have found permanent employment in teaching after a period of unemployment, supply teaching or other employment, and how many have failed to find permanent teaching posts.

Peter Peacock: The following table provides numbers of probationers participating in each year of the induction scheme since it started in August 2002. Most of those who fail to complete do so either due to health related absence or competence related issues or a combination of these factors.

  On the issue of employment I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-18887 on 28 September 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

  http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

  

 Year
 Total no. of Probationers as at August
 Successfully Completed Probationary Year


 2002-03
 2,078
 2,021


 2003-04
 1,845
 1,770


 2004-05
 2,093
 1,991


 2005-06
 2,737
 figures not yet available


 2006-07
 3,668*
 


 Total
 12,421
 



  Note: *As at June.

Vaccines

Mr Adam Ingram (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what statistics it collects on vaccine damage to NHS patients.

Mr Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive does not collect statistics on vaccine damage. The administration of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme is reserved and as such, is administered on a UK-basis by colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

  Further information can be provided by contacting DWP - Vaccine Damage Payments Unit at:

  Vaccine Damage Payments Unit Department for Work and Pensions Palatine House Lancaster Road Preston PR1 1HB

  Telephone number 01772 899944 or 899756

  Email CAUVDPU@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

  Details of the Vaccine Damage Payment scheme are contained in DWP’s website at: www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/benefits/vaccine_damage_payments.asp.

Vaccines

Mr Adam Ingram (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many successful claims in respect of vaccine damage have been made in Scottish courts over the last 10 years.

Mr Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive does not collect statistics on vaccine damage. The administration of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme is reserved and as such, is administered on a UK-basis by colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions.